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Going down the path of usability.

A few days ago I was at the hairdresser’s, on one of those eternal afternoons, which only we women understand why it takes so long, when I overhear this conversation: “what do I have to press to make the clothes dryer work? I’m completely hopeless in these matters”. Noticeably short of patience the other person replies: “they’re all the same, the thing is that you don’t pay attention, once you learn how one works, you know how all of them work.” I saw the frustration on the face of the person seeking help and I thought exactly the same. I have a dryer-washer at home and I haven’t managed to find out what program is for which thing and I have to over the manual again and again. I remembered Norman’s book, “The psychology of everyday objects”, which even mentions a similar example and tries to explain with clarity: “well designed objects are easy to use”. As we use them, they generate sensations and emotions that may be positive or negative and when we talk about this, it is when we start to see the term User Experience. There is always an experience when we interact or use some object. We can design it or it can be me merely an accident.

Without getting into all we can do in that field, firstly because I’m not an expert and then because it is not the aim of this issue, I’d like to reflect on what we can do to start considering the user experience as equipment and later for our customers not to see it as something added but as the real way to develop or improve their products.

The idea that user experience is something up to the designer, the design area or in the best of cases and depending on the maturity of the company, the UX area. But when we start walking these paths and we are non-experts, there is something that should minimally be the whole team’s responsibility: usability. And I say minimally, because usability is not the same as user experience. Usability should be seen as something much more concrete and reduced. It simply means if the user has reached the concrete aim he had set himself. User experience is a global concept that comprises all aspects involved when interacting with the product. As developers, team leaders , we are under obligation to think of the user when we are creating a solution. We tend to imagine that the user will reach our app or site because it’s nice. But things are not like that, the reach it because they need something that our application has to solve, so it is not enough for it to be nice to us. Here we can use simple tools like a group of heuristics to validate what we are designing and at least that will help to give that first step to introduce that idea in the team. With this simple step, which is economical and quick, I get an evaluation that will allow me measure the usability quantitatively and then compare. For instance, if we already have a login screen which we know has good conversion, why are we going to create it every time? We know the characteristics of a login screen, so let’s validate that we are taking that into account. We can also make use of design patterns, known solutions to known and recurrent problems, if they were already tested and validated. In a nutshell, let’s not use the excuse that it is expensive or difficult to apply because the customer already told us what they wanted. We can do things from our place to considerably improve the experience that the user will live when they face our solution.

The other point is the customer. What happens when we get to a customer and they say: “this is what needs to be done, I want another solution, with three screens, etc. But please make it usable”? How can we show the customer that we have to explore the way we should do it and that there is a process to do it?

Firstly, we must be aware that not all customers can implement the process, for different circumstances, be it budget, internal policies, etc. and that is something different to make things change. Secondly, we must start small and show results. We should educate the customer in the fact that the customer experience is quantifiable, measurable and its aim is to make a simpler and more agreeable to use product, taking into account the business and the technology. If we decide to design the user experience, a wide range of topics opens up: interaction design, functional specifications, information design, architecture of information, interface design and visual design . These are all different areas that must be considered when we talk about user experience.

Finally, I leave you a Steve Jobs phrase which is a good beginning to think about design and a good ending to the issue: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works”.